Key takeaways from Brookings Foresight Africa report 2023
An executive summary
Every year, Brookings, an American think tank, releases the Foresight Africa report. The report aims to highlight the continent's top priorities for the coming year, give actionable recommendations and promote dialogue on key issues.
On 1st February, Brookings released the 2023 report, with contributions from experts such as retired Tanzanian president H.E. Jakaya Kikwete and the current minister of Agriculture for the Republic of Liberia, Jeanine Milly Cooper.
The 170-page report has seven chapters—economic recovery, food security, education and skills, health, gender, climate change, and Africa's cities.
This executive summary will help you glean the key takeaways.
Africa is facing multiple crises
Unlike previous years, Africa is facing a confluence of crises that are battering the continent on all fronts, especially the economy.
In three years, the persistent and deepening climate crisis has seen Africa face drought, famine, flooding and locusts. Data shows that before the end of this century, the crisis could see Africa's GDP fall by 64%.
Soaring global interest rates have limited Africa's access to international financial markets, and the lack of a fair framework for debt relief and reduction for African countries has hampered economic recovery.
Take Sierra Leone. In 2022, the Leones, the country's currency, dropped in value by more than half against the U.S. dollar. Because the country's debt is in dollars, the Sierra Leone government has to pay twice as much to cover the debt.
In the report, author David Moinina, Sierra Leone's Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, said that the extra cost equals Sierra Leone's education and health budgets combined.
The crises don't end there. The ongoing deglobalization trends characterized by events such as Brexit, the Ukraine war and Trump's call for nationalism limit Africa's ability to leverage international trade to drive growth.
Security-wise, Africa is home to 4 out of 6 deadliest countries and 6 out of 10 most terror-prone countries. In the past year alone, the continent experienced 6 successful coups and 1 attempted coup. The insecurity and political instability affect all sectors, including the economy, health and education.Â
The pandemic wraps up this multiple crises list. Covid-19 shrunk Africa's GDP by 1.8%, pushing 23 million Africans into extreme poverty.
All is not lost: The continent has several economic recovery solutions open to it
The continent should develop creative methods of generating more revenues to support and grow the economy. Adequate domestic revenues form the foundation of any sustainable growth model. It is the opposite of debts which can become unsustainable very quickly.
"Countries can increase revenues by nurturing entrepreneurship, developing domestic/regional financial markets anchored by savings from pension funds, and bringing more people into the tax bracket." Victoria Kwakwa, Vice President for Eastern and Southern Africa, World Bank.
Closely tied to revenue generation is revenue management. Governments should channel revenues toward clearly-defined investments.
It's also imperative to rethink the policies that have governed how Africa extracts and benefits from its natural resources. The past six decades have seen Africa rely on policies that favor the extraction and export of raw materials.
That has worked against African countries. Take DRC. The Chinese investors negotiated a seemingly lucrative $6 billion infrastructure-for-minerals deal in DRC. Later, DRC officials found out that investors had underestimated the value of the Tenke Fungurume cobalt and copper mine to the tune of 7.5 billion dollars.
The next era should elevate policies that facilitate local value addition. For instance, there is no reason Africa shouldn't be the epicenter of green energy. It is not enough to sell lithium and cobalt. It is crucial to develop manufacturing industries around them.
Manufacturing, as China, South Korea and other regions that industrialized quickly have proven, is critical to building resilient and robust economies. A region with a weak manufacturing base experiences:
Unemployment (enough jobs not created to absorb entrants)
A huge import bill that is impossible to financeÂ
Shortages in foreign exchange because the region is importing more than it is exporting.
The common thread in all these solutions is that Africa needs to develop and strengthen domestic/regional/continental solutions for economic recovery.
The food insecurity dilemma and how to fix it
1 in 5 people in Africa is chronically under-nourished. The Ukraine-Russia war and persistent drought have further exacerbated food insecurity. Strengthening Africa's food systems is critical to combating food insecurity and achieving food sovereignty.
Financial tools that support Agri-SMEs are an excellent first step. SMEs are the lifeblood of this continent. The more support they get, the more food they produce.
Beyond that, governments should prioritize producing more food and fiber per unit of land and water. Africa has 60% of arable land, and much of it is underutilized, but while the continent works towards utilizing it, the focus should be on what is available.
Diversification of food systems is also critical. The continent should move away from global crops like rice to indigenous crops that are more resilient, e.g., cassava, sorghum and millet. Not entirely, balance is necessary, but indigenous crops are better equipped to handle climate change.
Climate change is arguably the biggest threat to food security. The report's authors proposed a multi-pronged approach.
Invest in irrigation to avoid disruptions from extreme weather events
Support and encourage farmers to adopt climate-smart practices and technologies such as afforestation.
Invest in renewable energy in rural Africa to discourage non-renewable energy that contributes to deforestation and worsens climate change.
Fertilizer use and access are also critical. Countries should develop strategies to increase the fertilizer application rate. Africa's fertilizer application rate is 20kg/ha, while the global average is 130kg/ha. The low rate affects the yield.
In 40 years, Africa's population will be more than the population of India and China combined. It is time to start laying the foundation for how Africa will feed itself.
Rethinking education for Africa's future
85% of jobs of the future do not exist today. To build a resilient continent in all spheres, Africa must equip the current generation for the future.
It starts with the young. African governments must invest in sufficient and well-trained teachers to ensure every child, regardless of gender or background, has at least 12 years of quality education. Quality education creates critical thinkers capable of solving problems.
The continent must then build on the innovations that emerged during the pandemic to ensure no child is left behind. Africa has the lowest average years of schooling.
Beyond staying in school, governments must overhaul education systems to ensure students acquire the necessary skills. Data shows that only 23% and 11% of 15-24-year-olds in SSA, North Africa, and the Middle East have basic secondary numeracy and literacy skills, respectively.
With basic education taken care of, next up is STEM.
One author quoted Kwame Nkrumah.
It is within the possibility of science and technology to make even the Sahara bloom into a vast field with verdant vegetation for agricultural and industrial developments.
STEM has the power to create a workforce that will adequately deal with perpetual developmental issues such as poverty, inequality, food insecurity and climate change. More than that, STEM is the currency of the future. If Africa does not build its capacity right now, it will miss out on the quantum age, just like it missed out on tech advancement in recent years.
Lastly, the continent cannot ignore the ties between insecurity and the disruption of education. Between 2020 and 2021, 14 African countries experienced over 2000 attacks on educational facilities. DRC and Mali were the most affected. Armed conflict in various African countries has forced more than 7000 schools to close.
As the continent works to improve the quality of education, it should also find ways to safeguard the quality of education in conflict-prone areas. Too many children fall by the wayside when this happens.
Finishing the job on HIV
In 2000, the U.N. Security Council Resolution declared HIV a health, security and economic crisis. African presidents vowed to throw everything they had into tackling the problem. They did, and as of 2020, new infections had dropped from 3.4 million to 870,000, and deaths had dropped from 2.3 million to 460,000.
Unsurprisingly, these incredible numbers coincided with a period of unprecedented economic growth in Africa. The strain HIV was putting in the continent decreased as the numbers improved.
Covid-19 and the Ukraine-Russia war threw Africa off track regarding HIV, with new infections rising. It is time to correct that and finish the job so that Africa can continue its growth trajectory.
To do so, countries must:
Take over the core function of management and service delivery and not leave it to donors. Donors are limited in what they can do.
Pay special attention to marginalized communities that are affected most by HIV. New infections often arise from such communities
Develop regionalized supply chains to improve access ( Africa imports 70 to 90 percent of the drugs it consumes)
Invest in health workers for better service delivery
Tackle inequalities faced by women and girls. Young women and girls are 3 times more likely to be infected with HIV than boys of the same age because of inequality. Something as simple as empowering them to stay in school brings that number down by 50%.
Lessons from the pandemic that can help secure Africa's health for the future
Prioritize investment into the health sector to improve health and safeguard the economy.
Promote self-reliance in the health industry by manufacturing essential health products
Prioritize universal health coverage. A system where individuals face financial barriers to health access compromises vital public health strategies
Take advantage of regional opportunities such as Africa CDC and AFDB. The organizations have immense convening power, technical capacity, and capacity for advocacy. They also have initiatives in place, such as the 'New Public Health Order' that can help strengthen health systems in Africa
Elevate the voices of and support frontline health workers. Nurses and midwives, for instance, can reach a vast population to facilitate preventive care. But they must be empowered to do so. Global Nursing Leadership Program (Partnership between Harvard, Africa CDC, A.U. and Burdett Trust for Nursing) aims to help empower nurses.
Need for collaboration between countries, especially regarding meaningful analysis of data. Covid19 proved that a lack of coordination and collaboration on epidemic intelligence and surveillance led to poor and ineffective decision-making.
Closing the equity gap central to tackling Africa's multiple crises
Enduring gender gaps in decision-making and power curtail the innovative solutions and thinking needed to tackle the continent's multiple crises.
Women suffer disproportionately from any crisis. With Covid-19, for instance, many women continued working through the pandemic because they had to bear the burden of care. At home, they had to put in more hours of unpaid work to take care of sick family members.
Closing the gender gap ensures women can better absorb the shock of the multiple crises for the entire community's benefit.
Rwanda's model showcases the advantage of closing the gender gap. The country adopted gender-responsive budgets to strengthen women's role in the health, agriculture, infrastructure and education sectors. As a result, the country has enjoyed short and medium-term economic growth.
To continue closing the gender gap, African countries should improve women's access to finance, reduce the risk of violence against women, and include women in decision-making.
Regarding improved access to finance, the authors proposed several solutions.
One, increase support to the informal sector (which employs over 90% of women) through skills development, procurement and market access.
Two, countries should be deliberate about avoiding implicit and explicit gender bias as they reform their tax systems to increase domestic revenue.
Nations should be intentional about digital and social inclusion. In Togo, the government offered financial aid to the population during the pandemic. Many women were left out because they lacked access to a cell phone.
Climate Change
The progress on climate finance is worrisome. In 2020/2021, the global community quickly mobilized $17 trillion in response to Covid-19. Contrast this with the yet-to-be-achieved $100 billion climate financing promise developed countries made to developing counties in 2009 during COP15.
The political will is simply nonexistent; if it continues, the consequences will be far-reaching. If Africa cannot meet its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) because of inadequate climate financing, neither can the world reach the Paris Climate Accord.
That said, African governments have a role to play. They must position their countries as attractive investment locations for climate-focused development.
They should also make room for the private sector to innovate around climate change. Mainstreaming climate adaptation in economic settings and giving a profit angle to going green incentivizes the private sector to keep finding innovative solutions.Â
Another exciting solution proposed by Bogolo J. Kanewendo is 'debt-for-climate swaps and carbon markets.'
Essentially, commercialize Africa's nature, such as the Congo rainforest, the only rainforest in the world that can absorb more carbon than it releases. This solution solves two issues: climate financing and debt crisis.
These are short to mid-term solutions. What about the long term?
As Yacob Mulugetta, a Professor of Energy at University College, London, succinctly put it:
Already we are seeing the deployment of huge quantities of renewable energy in advanced economies, and investments earmarked to make green energy transitions feasible. Countries that lag in low-carbon technological innovations stand to lose in the economic co-benefits that come from manufacturing future technologies.
Africa needs to pay close attention to those opportunities.
Africa is home to resources such as cobalt and lithium that are critical to renewable energy generation technologies.
To avoid past mistakes (the resource curse), Africa must create solid strategies for converting raw resources into value-adding opportunities.
Sustainable African cities require a tailored approach
African cities—from Lagos to Nairobi are similar in many ways. Many are highly populated, facing infrastructure renewal, and doing their best to deal with climate change.
To achieve sustainability, there needs to be a tailored approach that does not t to copy and paste what has worked for megacities outside Africa.
For example, 30% of Lagos is made up of marshes, swamps and lagoons. That makes the city particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change. Any urbanization plan must therefore include sustainable solutions to protect city dwellers from flash floods or other disasters that can occur due to rising sea levels.
Beyond sustainability, Africa also needs to maximize its urbanization potential. 40% of Africans reside in urban areas, but the continent is not experiencing the full productivity gains from agglomeration, scale and density.
The constraints holding African cities back are public sector governance, accessibility and business environment.
With accessibility, for example, most jobs in Nairobi city are not accessible within one hour of public commute. It leads to a lot of lost time, and according to data, the loss is equivalent to $5,200 per year.
Building climate-resilient housing, dealing with water scarcity, and creating jobs will also help maximize Africa's urban potential. Resilient housing can resist, recover or adapt to climate change, saving money whenever an extreme weather event occurs.
Water availability is closely tied to economic gains because lack of it affects multiple sectors—health, business, and hygiene, to name a few.
AfCFTA might be the silver bullet
The dictionary defines the silver bullet as a simple, almost magical solution to a complex problem. After reading all the essays, you will notice that AfCFTA is mentioned in all chapters by one or more authors.
Here is a cross-section of what various authors said.
It is important to accelerate AfCFTA implementation so that the continent can start experiencing its benefits, including increased intra-African trade. In a world where deglobalization makes it impossible to rely on international trade, the time has never been better to shift over-reliance on international trade and focus on regional trade.
In Nigeria, the incoming government must develop an AfCFTA strategy to support the development of a manufacturing sector. A thriving manufacturing industry is vital to building a resilient and robust economy.
African countries will have to leverage AfCFTA to negotiate better deals that promote value addition. Where individual countries might be at a disadvantage, the collective power of the entire trading bloc will facilitate better deals.
Increased AfCFTA adoption will avert food supply disruptions as experienced during the pandemic. That is because AfCFTA will facilitate internal supply chains.
Leveraging AfCFTA could widen and deepen Africa's market to facilitate the availability of affordable fertilizer across Africa.
The continent should leverage AfCFTA to spur the growth of Africa's health markets by opening up markets for labor (health workers), health commodities and attracting investments into the health sector.
There you have it! The only summary you need.
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Well researched write up.
Keep up.